Tips and Tricks

This post is for my other art teachers out there. I get so many ideas from your blogs and I feel like it is time to share mine that I have picked up along the way! A lot of these ideas I have borrowed from other art teachers but some I have learned on my own. From budget saving tips, to organization, and even classroom management, here are some tips and tricks I would like to share.

I will start with organization... This year I have printed out and laminated "kid friendly" Art standards. I put velcro strips on my white board to switch them out depending on what standard the lesson is covering that week. I bought the pencils from Target and wrote each grade that I teach on them, except Kindergarten and PreK because I ran out of room and pencils...

All the tables are color coordinated by the hanging tissue paper pom poms I made to go over each table. This helps to switch up table jobs each week (passing out artwork, passing out materials, collecting artwork, collecting materials, sweepers, etc...) and call out tables who are doing a good job or which table is the cleanest so they can line up first. It also helps when I am covering the tables with butcher paper every week I can use the same color on every table and they can just look up at the pom pom to remember what color table they are! Here is how I made them:

As for teaching students to stay organized ,I have also printed out labels this year on how the cubbies should look before the students leave class. This has seemed to work so far.

As for classroom management this year, I am doing a reward system called the golden art palette award. I made these out of wooden art palettes, gold spray paint, acrylic, and ribbon to hang them. I am keeping a point system for every class and adding up all of the points at the end of the month and each class in every grade that has the most points gets to hang the golden art pallet award on their door for a month! I will announce the winners over the announcements and give students a "free art day" or candy if they win! They also get to have bragging rights for they were the best behaved class in art that month! They can earn up to five points each class from doing the five things listed below.

I used the rest of my palettes to make a noise level warning signs and they lose the point for working quietly if I have to flip a letter.

Another thing I have started to use if the "Give Me 5 Method". I will say "Give me five" if it gets too loud and I need their attention or if it is time to clean up, and they will raise their hand and look at me, stop talking, stop what they are doing, and listen. I will wait to say what I have to say until every hand is raised and they are doing these five things.

As for consequences I made a clip chart for all of the Kindergarten classes with every kids name on a clothes pin. Everyone starts out on green at the beginning of class and if they break a rule or do something they are not supposed to be doing I will ask the student to go move their clip down to yellow(warning). If they work the rest of class without me having to talk to them again they can clip back up if I decide it was well deserved. If I have to talk to them again when that student is already on yellow, they will move their clip down to red and go sit in time out.

As for the other grades, I will give them a silent warning stop sign if they are disrupting the demo or instructions so I won't have to stop what I am doing to redirect the student. If they continue doing what they were doing, I will send them to the back of the room to sit out in the "chill out" chair. If it happens again some time in the next couple of weeks, I will send a note home to mom and dad for them to sign. If they stop what they are doing after the warning they will simply bring it to me at the end of class and tell me what they did to deserve the stop sign and apologize and it will all be over with.

I also have a couple tricks on saving a little bit of money on art supplies. For glue, I refill the glue bottles by filling a ketchup bottle with glue from a gallon jug. I also soak all the glue caps in cooking oil at the beginning of the year and this helps prevent clogging. I found that crab crackers make it easier to open the glue bottle tops when refilling them so that your hands don't get torn up or sore. I also have a poster to show students how to properly use a glue bottle! I don't like glue sticks because the kids never put the caps back on and then they are useless.

For paint I do something similar and buy sargent art washable art time tempera paint by the gallon and put them in ketchup bottles to make it easier to dispense on paper plates to put on each table.